February 3, 2017

Publication in The Stony Thursday Book #15. Jan. 2017

Very honoured to be included in #15 of The Stony Thursday Book, Limerick’s long-running yearly collection of contemporary poetry, this year edited by John Davies. About 1800 poems were submitted, we were informed at the launch, and so John had what must have been the herculean task of selecting the 98 poems eventually included in the book.

And so it is hard to pick out my preferences, but here goes –

Evan Costigan’s ‘Memo’ (p.13)is very short (all of 8 lines) and has the concision and attractiveness of a William Carlos Williams piece. Usually I don’t like cat poems, but exceptions prove the rule. I loved the final lines which indicate what this particular moggie has been up to:

… to the pond

where two goldfish

no longer flash.

And what a poem is David Lohrey’s ‘Muddy Water’ (p.39). I read in the bios that he ‘grew up on the Mississippi in Memphis’ and all I can say is that he has written a poem worthy of that historic region of the USA. One can get a feel of the people and their way of living and the constraints they had to deal with. Going up to northern Mississippi for a ballgame wasn’t a journey undertaken lightly:

They were greeted upon arrival by the local sheriff

And his cow-shit-stained deputies who aimed their shotguns

At their heads and shouted “Niggers don’t play ball down here,

So y’all better git back yonder.”

Edward O’Dwyer’s ‘Going’ (p.60) is a sad poem about someone taken ill in a car at a traffic lights, all the more effective for me because I witnessed something similar one time. I thought the restraint of the last few lines was admirable:

Some people too are moving towards

the man’s car in a tentative fashion,

the way people do when they are expecting

to find something disturbing.

I also liked another rather sad poem dealing with an older person’s forgetfulness: ‘Testing’ (p.114) by Martine Large.

She knows the name of the prime minister,

it’s right there, give her time …

Ron Houchin’s ‘The Crows of Ennistymon’ (p.14) captures that sinister aspect that clings to crows and which was exploited so well by Ted Hughes and Hitchcock:

… the crows who keep a little to themselves,

who feed on death so often, know this and their wailing gyre

tells of each new vapor rising, a spirit they must rail about

from each night’s vantage above the Falls Hotel …

And there were so many others I liked very much. Anamaria Crowe Serrano’s ‘Cauthleen‘,Paul McNamara’s ‘Little Bits of Processed Nature in Small Locked Boxes’,which was very enthusiastically received on the launch night, and ‘Elephant’, enacted by the redoubtable Norman King.

One of my poems ‘Kilmainham Elegy’ deals with the 1916 rising, or rather the aftermath thereof. During a walk some years ago in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham cemetery, I came across the graves of some very young British Soldiers who were killed during that Easter Week. My sadness at the loss of their young lives is no reflection on the lives lost by the insurgents, nor on their cause. I hope this comes across in the poem because I would be seriously upset if there seemed to be any criticism of the Irish rebels. I am no revisionist in matters of the fight for Irish freedom. Still, the death of a 19-year-old, whosoever they are, and in whatever circumstances must always be a sad event. You can be sure that someone somewhere grieved the loss of his young life.

Kilmainham Elegy

for two soldiers, aged 19,

of the Notts & Derby Regiment

As in life, now at the last

we are together, side by side,

two English boys who disembarked

to angry streets at Eastertime.

–

We who thought to ship for France

to fight for freedom of small nations

lie with dust of older wars

in this Royal Hospital Kilmainham.

–

A century has driven past

along the St. John’s Road. Nearby,

Kilmainham Jail remembers those

were conscripts of a dream and died.

–

Two English boys fresh from the Shires,

we fought and fell, our long decay

now equal part of Ireland’s soil

with those who raised her flag that Sunday.

My other poem ‘An Emigrant’s Return’ is rather long and deals with some personal family memories. I am particularly grateful to John Davies for including it in the anthology because it can be quite hard to get a long poem published. And I was particularly grateful to be afforded the time to read out, complete, on the night.

Contributors receive two copies of the book and it is available from the Limerick Arts Office (artsoffice@limerick.ie) for €10, p&p free (+353 407363). The cover art is ‘Heterogeneous’ by Beth Nagle and the overall design is by Richard Mead. Submissions for #16 are now being considered and should be sent to Limerick Arts Office, Limerick City and County Council, Merchants Quay, Limerick.